Why I Love Buffy Scholars (Reason #144)

I’ve been meaning to post this for ages, but most of my (rare) free time lately was being spent on Game of Thrones posts. So with the season being at an end, I’m writing this on Wednesday so it’ll go live on Saturday (oooohhh… time travel…)

The last week of March my family and I went to the Dominican Republic. The day before we left, there was a large package on our front doorstep, and I said to my husband, “Wow, I wish that large package was full of merch from HBO.” No, really, I actually said that, since almost all packages that come to our house are filled with golf balls or new golf clubs (the shape of those tall boxes are giveaways) or golf shirts or shorts or new monogrammed golf shoes… in case you’re wondering, my husband is a golf writer. So I never get cool stuff.

We went up to the door, and sure enough, the package was from HBO! And it was full of Game of Thrones stuff. So just when I was thinking this was the best mail day ever, I walked into the house and saw another large envelope sitting on our stairs. The postmark was North Carolina, and the only people I knew from North Carolina were the Guffeys, Dale and Ensley, who I knew through Buffy fandom (they’re both Whedon scholars who have been at various pop culture conferences) and who are writing a Breaking Bad book for me. I opened the package, and sure enough, it was from them. And, turns out, from a bunch of other Buffy scholars.

As many of you know, this site hosted a Buffy Rewatch last year. I was joined by 30 people — scholars, bloggers, poets, novelists, and fans — and among all of us, we took on the task of watching up to three episodes a week and posting on them. You can go to the archive here if you’re newer to the site, and these posts will always be there for new viewers to read along the way we did. I was so grateful to everyone who helped me out, as you’ll see throughout the Rewatch.

But even though I felt the thanks should all be from me to them, a few thought differently, and wanted to thank me for hosting it and having all these wonderful people come together. And they surprised me with THIS:

A bracelet with the entire Finding Lost series on it, plus my Buffy and Angel books!! Can you believe it?? They’re tiny little books that actually spin around, and the sculptor even wrote my name on each spine in the font from the book cover. I was speechless. (And as many people will tell you, that’s a great feat.) I’ve since contacted the woman who made them, and she’s currently doing a custom job for me for a gift for someone else. It’s just a fabulous idea. (If you’re interested, her work is on Etsy here, and she has a lot of premade jewellery and also takes custom orders.) Thank you to her!

But a big, big thank you to Ensley and Dale Guffey for being the ringleaders and putting it together and having it made for me, as well as those lovely people who signed the card and were a part of the big surprise: Tanya Cochran, Rhonda Wilcox, Alyson Buckman, Elizabeth Rambo, Matthew Pateman, Stacey Abbott, David Lavery, Christina Boulard, Jennifer K. Stuller, Mary Evans, and Cynthea Masson. From what I’ve heard after, Pateman was charged with finding out if I was allergic to gold and silver, but since he could never come up with a casual way to fit that into the conversation (hahaha!!), when I was at Tanya’s house in January she gleaned an answer somehow and got it back over to Dale and Ensley. I have no idea how she did it, since I don’t remember that coming up in conversation at all (maybe I was wearing both or something?) but these guys are amazing spies and I had no idea this was in the works.

Thank you, you guys. This is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me, and I’ve always wanted to have some way to commemorate all of my books, and this is perfect. Every person I’ve shown it to has gasped with delight. I can’t wait to thank everyone in person at Slayage.

UPDATE: I wrote all of that up on Wednesday, and last night I went to see Joel McHale at Casino Rama (yay!) and discovered afterwards that while I’d been offline, it was announced that the Whedon Studies Association has nominated the Buffy Rewatch for a Mr. Pointy Award!!! You have no idea how awesome I think this award is, and never thought I could ever be nominated for one because I’m not an academic. You can see the complete list of nominees here, and I was THRILLED to be included in the group and considered for something I hold up to be very important. I am so happy right now!! (And yes, for anyone who is wondering, it’s actually an award that is fashioned like Buffy’s stake Mr. Pointy, which she inherited from Kendra.)